Advertisement
Published: September 11th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Svejk
My guide -- Josef Svejk I recently departed the rustic, yet comfortable environs of the Solvalla Hotel. Outside my window stood a forest, and beyond that a blue lake with a rocky shore line. The landscape and weather reminded me of Minnesota -- to say nothing of the people. The bathroom put Stadion Hostel (my once and future temporary residence) to shame. There’s a shower with a working schlong (this is what the Russians call the apparatus that allows you to remove the shower head from its perch -- nothing weird about a bathroom with a working schlong) and warm pipes on which to dry out your towels - just like at home in Perm. In fact, most Russian bathrooms have exposed hot water pipes that double as towel holders. Cold country ingenuity.
So for two days I got out of Helsinki, but could not get back into Russia. My Finnish Visa expedition has been forcibly extended. My original plan was that sometime this or tomorrow afternoon I would return to the Russian consulate office and collect my new visa. But, as it happened, when I dropped it off on Monday, the woman told me, “I’m sorry - you can pick it up here,” and
Mossy boulder
The rocky soil of Finland, near Esbo she circled a “22,” meaning September 22, two weeks later. Devastation. I should have, but hadn’t, expected this, and it took a awhile to sink in. “I can talk with my superior,” the consular official said.
“Yes!" I had hope. "You see, school has already started and I didn’t want to stay here past Friday…” and I blathered on a bit more like this until the official told me. “Sit down over there Mr. Rasmussen. I will call you shortly.”
So I sat. I had to vacate the hostel I was staying in next day, and in any case the Stadion (located in the Olympic Stadium) allowed guests a one-week maximum visit. I had never checked to see how long a Russian business visa actually took to process, but as I look back on the decision making process that led to that point, I distinctly remember wanting to believe that it couldn’t take more than a week. It was, I felt sure, a simple process. The Perm State University Immigration office thought my plan was ok, or at least did not suggest anything else. And so I had purchased the plane tickets, filled out the forms, and brought
On the trails
The walking trails near the hotel were fantastic -- Finland has great hills, though you wouldn't know it from most maps myself to this office.
A few moments later, the woman called me back to the window. “I’m sorry, but there is nothing that can be done. There is a law.” She then handed me a bill and directions to the nearest bank. I stumbled out. I paid the bill, and then headed directly to the American consulate, which I had passed in an earlier round of wandering. The complex was heavily guarded. I approached the guard window near the gate, and the soldier inside asked me who I was.
“Yes! I’m an American citizen.” Then I hesitated and we were both silent. “I’m in a bit of a jam.” The phrase sounded hackneyed, and vaguely British. I instantly regretted that I had come. “A financial jam?” The soldier asked.
I probably would be after two weeks in Helsinki, but said “No, no, nothing like that. You see I came here for a Russian visa, and now I’ve applied and they have it, and I won’t have it for two weeks.”
The soldier seemed to be smiling, but the glass was dark. “Hold on.” I’ve grown accustomed to waiting and so I stood there wearing a
Ababa?
I don't know what you call this mushroom. Sveta's aunt Vala would. I didn't eat it ball cap on, hooded sweatshirt, and giant backpack. I certainly looked like a fool.
“Do you have any identification?” I handed him my Nebraska driver’s license.
Time passed. A DHL guy arrived. We waited on the other side of the glass. Then I heard, “Mr. Rasmussen? That phone over there will ring. Answer it.”
And, wonder of wonders, there was a phone, discreetly hidden to look like a mailbox, right there on the sidewalk. And it rang. Feeling idiotic, like a pretend spy I picked up. “Hello?”
A man with a Finnish accent asked me what my trouble was. I explained that I was concerned about being in a foreign country without a passport. He said he understood but there was nothing to be done about it now, as the Russians had my passport and no one could interfere with their business.
“Can you survive in Helsinki for two weeks?” I wondered for a moment if he was being ironic. Helsinki was perhaps, the safest, cleanest and nicest place I had ever been.
“Yes.”
“Ok, goodbye then!”
I hung up. The soldier had come outside and was definitely grinning. “He straighten everything
Ski Finland
This is a view from the ski shack at the top of Swinghill -- a resort near Solvalla. Not too steep, not too tall, and with a tow rope rather than a lift chair. The ski shack gave me shelter from the rain, which lasted all Tuesday into Wednesday morning. out for you?”
I didn’t want to answer, but said “yes” anyway and wandered off again.
On my way to the Russian consulate that morning, I had noticed this business that specialized in obtaining Russian tourist visas. Maybe, I thought just maybe they could help expedite the process.
“You should have never come to Finland to apply for a Russian visa,” the man told me.
“I see that now.”
So I went back to the train station, wrote a long whine of an email to Sveta and decided to dine at McDonalds, one of those depressing places of organized loneliness. But first I made a trip to the tourist center to book new lodgings. There it was explained to me that September was the busy season and that there were no open rooms under 200 euros ($300) in the city for the next two nights. After that, the Stadion would welcome me back. In the interim, they booked me a room at a national park, at the Solvalla. I trudged back to the Hostel through mist and by the time I had set out for my McDonalds it was raining. The weather fit my mood
Lake view
Finland's got loads of lakes. Here's the view from the dock. and I chose to walk rather than take the free tram.
There’s a Jonathan Richman song, “Nineteen in Naples,” about a young and insecure traveler. Despite being ten years older than the song’s protagonist, I was falling into the same trap. “I didn’t like this and I didn’t like that” Richman sings, “I was such a little brat.” Thankfully for me, Sveta ended that. She sent an email, actually a series of emails, telling me to take the next two weeks as an opportunity. She also went to work trying to locate anyone in Helsinki who could put me up offering ideas about how to secure cheap university lodging,. So I ate up and stopped moping.
I also had with me one companion -- the Good Soldier Svejk -- who greeted all the horror and absurdity of WWI with dignified equanimity and humor. He was to be my model. Now I had finished Svjek by the time I arrived in Moscow, but re-reading key passages was absolutely essential to sanity maintainance.
The trip the following day out to Solvalla was filled with tedium, missed busses, missed trains, but to revisit that would be beyond tiresome. So here
Lake View II
A different, rockier view is the Finnish wilderness, as photographed by me.
finns.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.114s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 9; qc: 66; dbt: 0.088s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
anonymous
non-member comment
I actually think it is an edible mushroom.